


marching on, or something like that

by usernameapathy



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/F, Tales of Femslash 2020, first time creating character tags wheee, ultra-rarepair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernameapathy/pseuds/usernameapathy
Summary: "I am NOT the Great Spirit of star-crossed lovers!"Written for Tales of Femslash Week 2020, Day 7 prompt "Lily/Free-for-all"
Relationships: Min/Lisa, misc character friendship and background Jude/Milla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Tales of Femslash Week 2020





	marching on, or something like that

The winged spirit faded into material existence in a setting that was a little bit more crowded than she had been anticipating. Excessively armored, excessively enthusiastic human soldiers moved back and forth across the square in what was probably a purposeful fashion, but looked like it was just confused running around. ( _Like a headless...? Turducken! No, that wasn't it._ ) The green armor of the Sharilton guard predominated - understandably, considering that Sharilton was exactly where she was - but she could spot other colors and uniforms from all over Rieze Maxia, and even a few humans in the red and dark grey of the Elympion military.

The soldiers weren't really the important thing here, though. She scanned the crowd for any of her sister's friends for only a moment or two before spotting a couple of them, then glided in their direction. Pleasingly, the humans in between got out of her way with minimal staring.

Leia spotted her first and waved. "Hey, Muzét!"

Standing next to her, Alvin offered a smile. ( _But don't think I missed that little sigh-gulp, mister!_ ) "What brings you back to the human realm? Got wind of this whole mess?"

Muzét put one hand to her chin. "I have no idea what 'this whole mess' even is. There does seem to be quite a commotion." 

"Yeah, there was a plot to assassinate Gaius with a spyrix bomb while he was attending some conference thing or something," Alvin said. "It didn't get very far, but it's gotten all the security types into kind of a panic."

Leia pulled a face at him. "'Some conference thing or something'? Did you even read my article?"

Muzét felt the brow of her newly material face furrow, and she folded her arms. "Exodus again? Don't they _ever_ get tired?"

( _Should I_ _maybe probably go kill some of them while I'm here?_ Image of balling up fists, glare. _I think that's okay with everyone now, right?_ )

"Actually, no," another voice broke in. "The bomb came from Elympios, but otherwise it was some local political thing."

She thought she recognized the voice, and confirmed it when she turned around. She'd met the two young human women once before, a little over a year ago. The frowny-faced brown-haired one in Elympion military uniform who'd spoken was Min, and the one with a headband holding short blonde hair in the battledress of the old Rashugal Bladecorps was named Lisa. She beamed at Muzét. "Oh, wow, it is you! I thought I recognized you! You're hard to miss, even without those wings."

Muzét tilted her head. "Oh, what brings you two back together?"

"Like Min said, it was a joint problem, so when our governments heard about it they used a joint solution. The bomb was originally designed by some Elympion extremist splinter group," Lisa looked downcast, "but it was bought by a group of former Rashugal military officers who had never stopped resenting being ruled by a 'northern barbarian.'"

Min rolled her eyes. "Like I said: a local political thing." There was an oddly teasing note to her voice as she said it, though.

"So when both of our governments heard about it-"

"Thanks to a certain old buddy of mine," Alvin put in. ( _Hmm? Oh, right! "Wimpy cowboy guy!"_ )

"They decided it would be best if they took care of it together. And we worked really well together in the past-"

"Worked well. I don't know about _really_ well." Min this time. ( _She sure does seem prickly._ A mental folding of her arms. ... _ **I** am **not** prickly!_)

"-so we were assigned to head up the operation. And it worked!" Lisa clapped her hands together and beamed.

Leia had out a pen and paper. "Hey, but I thought it'd been announced that there was never any real danger - that the terrorists didn't fully understand how the bomb operated and it malfunctioned when it was moved into Sharilton's spirit clime."

Min turned to look at Lisa. "Wait, what? Seriously? That wasn't in my part of the report."

The blond girl shrugged. "Well, it's just a theory I had. And- 

"You could have mentioned this before we went in!"

"Um, a-and besides-"

"Ugh... You ditz." Min sighed. "Considering that we're off-duty now, I'm just going to get a drink." With that, Min turned and headed through the crowd - which now seemed much more at the standard human level of scurrying confusion - towards one of the nearby hazardous liquid establishments.

( _Hee hee. These places are always good to observe humans at their oddest._ ) She frowned. ( _Or that's what Milla said, I think..._ )

Alvin grinned. "Sounds like a plan. Care to join me, ladies? Water's on me."

Leia did a little angry hop. "Hey!"

***

Later, inside the tavern, she watched as Alvin nursed a beer and Leia sipped occasionally from a very fizzy soda. ( _That soooo fits her! I wonder what Milla's favorite drink is? Maybe I should ask them._ ) Min hadn't joined them exactly, but was sitting at the end of the bar closest to the table they were at, where she was taking multiple drinks from her own rather foamy beverage.

"So you didn't get around to mentioning: why did you come to the human realm just now, anyway?"

She quirked her head sideways as she floated above the seat. "I suppose you could call it a bit of a test. Now that spyrites are starting to become slightly more common, the balance of mana is... I suppose 'shifting' a little. Milla wanted to know if that made it possible now for a Great Spirit to maintain a physical form without consuming as much mana. Since I possess the power to shift between the dimensions, I was the natural choice."

Leia lifted a hand, apparently unconsciously. "Hold on, you're a Great Spirit now?"

Muzét tried not to put on a "well, duh" look. "I'm Maxwell's sister. What else would I be?"

Alvin took another sip from his mug. "Yeah, but the Great Spirit of what, exactly? The Four are all supposed to be the classical elements. Chronos is Time. Origin is Void. You're... what, the Great Spirit of Mail Deliveries?"

( ** _Mail deliveries?!_** ) "...Mail deliveries?"

Alvin grinned. "Well, that's why you appeared in Sharilton as opposed to anywhere else, right? Jude's scheduled to spend the next two weeks here delivering lectures, at least before this whole bomb thing blew... uh, blew up." He paused and winced. "And I doubt that'll stop him. So I figured you'd be using this jaunt to run messages between him and Milla."

Leia was nodding before Alvin finished speaking. "Oh, yeah! That would make sense. And I bet Milla would really appreciate it."

( _Oh, yes, absolutely!_ ) But they didn't need to hear it that strongly. "Hmm. Now that you mention it, I had considered that idea."

"Urrrgh." She turned at the groan to see Min set her mug down hard on the bar's counter. "Even the spirits here are all sentimental. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only professional on this entire world." Her voice turned higher. "'In a way, this whole thing is reason to be optimistic, isn't it? If even the bad guys are working together now, then you know the two worlds have to be growing closer!' Come _on_... And then there's this whole thing about fighting our way to a bomb that probably doesn't even _work_ just to make sure it doesn't cause any harm by going off accidentally..." She took another gulp of beer. "I mean, sure, she's really good at it, but..." A sigh. "Stupid Rieze Maxians. Stupid weird spirit magic..."

Muzét frowned. "Aww. I kind of thought after they went on that mission with us, they'd worked things out and gotten closer, but it seems like Min finds Lisa even more annoying now."

Alvin lifted his eyebrows. "I dunno. I'm pretty sure they're even closer now than back then. This is just what that looks like..."

"...Stupid irrepressible cheerfulness that's always right. Stupid sexy Bladecorps uniform... What is it with red anyway..."

Leia set her soda down with a hard clunk (which was a bit odd given that she'd only just lifted it up). "A-anyway! I don't know if you know, but Elize's class has the next week off, so she'll probably be coming down here as well..."

( _Hmm._ )

***

Later, they went back out onto the main square, which was now almost totally devoid of overexcited humans. Almost was the right word, though, since Lisa was still there. She waved briefly to Muzét and the others before Min went over to her.

"Hey. Sorry if I was a bit of a grouch earlier," the Elympion said. "Honestly, when it comes right down to it, you're the best partner I've ever had, Elympion or Rieze Maxian. You just... take some getting used to." She held up a hand. "And no, that's not the beer talking."

Lisa giggled. "That's okay! I'm used to you being a grouch. It doesn't mean we can't be friends anyway."

Min ran a hand through her hair and looked down. "Right... _friends_. Yeah."

( _Humans sure do change colors easily, don't they?_ )

"Hey, maybe that's it," Alvin commented as the two young women walked off together.

"Hmm?"

"What you're the Great Spirit of. I mean, between those two and Jude and Milla... What would be the right phrasing? Great Spirit of Opposites Attracting? Nah, they're not totally opposite... Great Spirit of Star-Crossed Lovers?"

Leia shook her head.

( _Oh, now that is just **silly**!_ Arms folded.) And apparently in real life too.

"I am NOT-"

**Author's Note:**

> Starting to work through my backlog on my Tales of Femslash Week 2020 fics...
> 
> These side characters from Muzét's third chapter in Tales of Xillia 2 really pushed my ":D x >:(" ship button the first time I saw them. I wanted to do one really-out-there pairing for this year's TOFs free-for-all prompt, so I figured I may as well put this out there. Since this was a fic about side characters, I also liked the idea of doing a story that's essentially side commentary/observation on an adventure that we don't actually see.
> 
> In practice, I don't think it worked (which is the second reason why this is releasing over a month late - the first, of course, is just that I'm very lazy). But since the fic IS finished, there's no reason not to post it. (And I did enjoy translating the "Muzét's inner thoughts" stuff from the game, although I hope it's not too confusing to read.)


End file.
